T. Charles Erickson / Oregon Shakespeare FestivalThe Allen Elizabethan Theatre, shown here during a 2013 production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” is the oldest full-scale Elizabethan stage in the Western Hemisphere. Seating 1,190 patrons, it was built in 1935 on the site of Ashland’s original outdoor theater.

ASHLAND — There’s something about the annual Shakespeare festival in this southern Oregon city that gets a person excited about culture.

Call it the promise of summer ushered in with the yearly advent of nationally acclaimed repertory theater. Colorful banners and flower boxes adorn businesses and street lamps. In the restaurants, bars and coffee houses, even just strolling down the streets, you can feel the energy of the creative actors and artists who make Ashland their seasonal home.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), which extends from mid-February into November, is not just about the legendary bard. Of the 11 plays it presents in three separate theaters, only five are 16th-century Elizabethan. The others are a mix of adapted 20th-century classics and never-before-staged premieres, introduced to the world in Ashland.

The festival is one of the most important entertainment events in the Pacific Northwest. Operating on an annual budget of just under $33 million (supported almost entirely by ticket sales), it injects more than $250 million into the Oregon economy. With 791 performances scheduled in 2014, it is on track to sell more than 400,000 tickets to an estimated 125,000 visitors, the vast majority from outside Southern Oregon.

Three productions will open this week at the Allen Elizabethan Theatre.

{%TravAshland-p01 060814%}

The 1,190-seat theater is the oldest, full-scale Elizabethan stage in the Western Hemisphere, designed after the original Globe Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Built in 1935 (on the site of Ashland’s original 1893 Chautauqua theater), and since improved, it has orchestra and balcony seating, and is almost as good a place from which to view the heavens as to watch the plays on stage.

Both the Elizabethan and the 601-seat Angus Bowmer Theatre open onto a paved courtyard on Pioneer Street. This is the heart of the OSF campus, a place where an eclectic variety of free, one-hour musical and dramatic performances — the “Green Show” — is presented at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday in summer.

{%TravAshland-p09 060814%}

Across the street is the OSF box office, wedged beside the Thomas Theatre, which seats 270 to 360 depending upon seating configuration. Adjacent is Carpenter Hall, which serves an educational function: Informative backstage tours, led by cast members, begin here at 10 a.m., and enlightening, 30-minute introductions to many of the plays are offered at 5:30 p.m.

On the north side of the courtyard is the intriguing Tudor Guild gift shop, whose profits support the festival; wares range from T-shirts and books to replica Elizabethan costumes.

Marxist humor

Four 2014 productions — Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and “The Comedy of Errors,” along with the Marx Brothers’ “The Cocoanuts” and Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” — began their runs in mid-February. Two others — Pulitzer Prize-winning “Water by the Spoonful” and “A Wrinkle in Time,” geared toward young adults — have been on stage since spring began.

I was able to enjoy three plays in the week following Memorial Day. My favorite was “The Cocoanuts,” the classic 1925 Marx Brothers’ play (and 1929 movie) adapted by actor-playwright Mark Bedard for the OSF and presented at the Bowmer Theatre.

{%TravAshland-p02 060814%}

Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo Marx were the toast of the American entertainment industry in the era between the world wars. “The Cocoanuts,” their first film, incorporated the music and lyrics of the great Irving Berlin. And Bedard’s new version integrates all of the deadpan, slapstick humor that fans of the comedy troupe have come to expect. To wit:

Halfway through the production, Mr. Hammer, a Florida hotel owner (as played by Groucho Marx), is describing to an Italian visitor (Chico Marx) the location of an adjacent property ripe for development:

“Look, Einstein, here’s Cocoanut Manor. Here’s Cocoanut Heights … and right over here, where the road forks, that’s Cocoanut Junction.”

“Where you got Cocoanut Custard?”

“Why, that’s on one of the forks. You probably eat with your knife, so you won’t have to worry about that. … Now, here is the main road leading out of Cocoanut Manor. That’s the road I wish you were on. Over here, on this site, we’re gonna build an eye and ear hospital. This is gonna be a site for sore eyes. You understand?”

“That’s-a fine.”

“Now right over here, this is the residential section. … All along here, this is the riverfront. And all along the river, those are all levees.”

“That’s the Jewish neighborhood?”

“Well, we’ll Passover that. You’re a peach, boy.”

{%TravAshland-p03 060814%}

It’s Bedard himself who deftly impersonates Groucho is his role as Hammer. A native Californian in his seventh season with OSF, Bedard, 34, had taken on eight different Shakespearean roles (“I’ve played a lot of clowns,” he offered) before he was cast as Groucho in the OSF’s “Animal Crackers” two seasons ago.

“I wasn’t ever a fan of the Marx Brothers,” he confessed. But as an actor committed to the roles for which he’s cast, he quickly became obsessed with them.

“I wasn’t good at impersonations before, but I got real good,” he said. “I did tons of research, watched all of the movies and TV appearances, read biographies like ‘Harpo Speaks.’ I questioned the vaudeville style and learned why they did things certain ways.”

Still focused on the Marxes after the production ended, Bedard ordered the original “Cocoanuts” script (“for fun”) from New York’s Lincoln Theatre during the 2012-13 OSF off season: “And for fun, in three weeks, I did my own adaptation.”

Actor Brent Hinkley, who has adopted the persona of Harpo Marx, told OSF artistic director Bill Rauch about Bedard’s stage play. Rauch loved it. He brought in veteran director David Ivers and choreographer Jaclyn Miller to help tell the story. Rehearsals began immediately after New Year’s Day and “The Cocoanuts” opened on Feb. 16.

The raves have resounded from Portland to San Francisco, with echoes all the way to New York. “We have an amazing team on our show,” Bedard said. By the time “Cocoanuts” wraps up on Nov. 2, he will have reprised his role as Mr. Hammer nearly 120 times.

{%TravAshland-p04 060814%}

“I love being in front of a live audience,” Bedard said — explaining, in part, why he hasn’t been inclined to add film to his resume. “And most of the time, I like being Groucho a lot, because he’s so different from me.”

“I consider myself a shy person,” the actor continued. “Groucho was so confident, so comfortable with his personality, he didn’t know how to turn it off. He was constantly practicing jokes and looking for ways to subvert something.”

Marx’s heavy mustache, prominent eyebrows and wire-rim glasses have been imitated countless times in comedy spoofs. He was, as Bedard said, “one of the most iconic performers of the past century.” Bedard, by contrast, is clean shaven and glasses-free.

Yet Bedard remains original in his role: “Opening and closing, I never use the same joke twice,” he insisted. “I love adapting.”

Now playing

In addition to “The Cocoanuts,” I caught “A Wrinkle in Time,” a science-fiction tickler based on a 1962 young-adults book by Madeleine L’Engle, and “The Comedy of Errors,” a Shakespearean comedy that has been set in 1920s Harlem with a predominantly African American cast. Neither was as gut-clutching funny as “The Cocoanuts.” In neither did I find the acting as provocative nor the stage production as memorable. Both, however, were entertaining in their own ways.

Many people now in their 40s and 50s may recall having read “A Wrinkle in Time” during their school years. The book tells the story of two children who travel to another planet in search of their missing father, having been introduced to the concept of “tesseract” — folding time and space like a pleated drape — by three mysterious women. Their encounters with an evil, technology-dominated bureaucracy bring them face to face with their own ethical values in what, a few years later, might have been a plot for “Star Trek.”

{%TravAshland-p05 060814%}

There was an innocence to Tracy Young’s world-premiere production, true to the intent of the book and popular among dozens of schoolchildren in the matinee audience. Perhaps it was impossible that it could also have been as profound as other OSF plays I’ve seen over the years. Playing at the Bowmer, it is scheduled to run through Nov. 1.

The Elizabethan English scripted in Ashland’s Shakespearean productions is often difficult to follow, especially for those like myself who may not have previously read the plays. That problem is complicated when the setting is altered from where the Bard envisioned it. That was why I struggled with “The Comedy of Errors,” placed in the golden age of jazz in New York.

The story centers on two sets of twins, one pair of whom arrive in Ephesus (Harlem) from Syracuse (Louisiana) after having been separated from their family in a shipwreck. Through a farce of mistaken identities they are reunited, but not without (you guessed it) a comedy of errors. I enjoyed the Duke Ellington-Cab Calloway soundtrack and the theater-in-the-round presentation at the small Thomas Theatre. This play will be presented through Nov. 2.

{%TravAshland-p06 060814%}

Summer theater

“The Tempest” wasn’t scheduled during my visit, or I certainly would have chosen to see the great Shakespearean romance. Schedule conflicts conspired against me when it came to seeing two modern dramas, “Water by the Spoonful” and “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.” I hope to catch all of them later this year.

“The Tempest” (Bowmer Theatre, through Nov. 2), as any Shakespeare aficionado knows, begins when a mighty storm blows a ship of old enemies aground on an enchanted island, where the sorcerous Duke Prospero was wrongly exiled 12 years earlier. When Prospero’s daughter, Miranda, now a young woman, is romanced by the princely son of one of his foes, it provides the spark to set the duke’s world right again.

{%TravAshland-p07 060814%}

“Water by the Spoonful” (through June 20, and again Sept. 4 to Nov. 2, in the Thomas Theatre) won a Pulitzer in 2012 for playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes. Recovering addicts in Philadelphia, San Diego, Puerto Rico and Japan find empathy in an online chat room, only to have their cyberworld rocked when a trauma-stricken veteran of the Iraq war joins them. Edgy John Coltrane jazz music provides background.

“The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” (through July 3 in the Bowmer) harkens back to 1964. In this 50th-anniversary production, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, famed for “A Raisin in the Sun,” explores questions of commitment — to ourselves, to society as a whole — in New York’s bohemian Greenwich Village. Brustein, a Jewish intellectual, takes a difficult journey into chaos, fear and questions of morality as he debates the wisdom of a leap of faith.

{%TravAshland-p08 060814%}

Beginning July 1 (through Aug. 31) at the Thomas Theatre is the world premiere of “Family Album,” a rock-and-roll musical by Stew and Heidi Rodewald. As described in OSF literature, it “takes wicked aim at the tradeoffs and dilemmas facing anyone trying to reconcile the dreams of youth with the practical realities of grown-up life.”

OSF artistic director Bill Rauch himself directs “The Great Society,” an exploration of the Lyndon Johnson presidency from 1965 to 1968. Scheduled to play July 23 through Nov. 1 at the Bowmer, this world premiere by Robert Schenkkan offers a perspective on the way the LBJ administration handled such issues as civil rights, the Vietnam conflict and the war on poverty.

Opening this month at the Allen Elizabethan Theatre are Shakespeare’s “Richard III” and “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” as well as Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.” Each will be performed twice a week from June 13 to Oct. 12.

In “Richard III,” Shakespeare reworked history as tragedy, making the English king (1452-85) even more villainous that he may actually have been. The last ruler of the House of York, Richard is depicted as a cunning royal reprobate, deformed in body and spirit, who blazes a murderous path to the throne of his country. The OSF describes the work as “tragedy at its best — deep, rich and unapologetic.”

“The Two Gentlemen of Verona” brings a far lighter Shakespearean touch to the stage. A tale of romantic rivalry between best friends Proteus and Valentine, this production’s all-female cast is the opposite of Elizabethan tradition.

“Into the Woods” won a Tony Award for composer Stephen Sondheim and writer James Lapine when it was first presented in 1987. Today, I wonder if it might have been a model for the popular ABC television show “Once Upon a Time,” which tangles familiar fairy tales in a single story. Jack (of Beanstalk fame) joins Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood on a walk into the haunted woods, where wishes may indeed come true — but at a price.

Sleep and eat

My favorite place to stay when I visit Ashland is The Peerless. Located a half-dozen blocks from the OSF campus in Ashland’s historic Railroad District, The Peerless boasts a pleasant garden area between its main dining room and a cozy red-brick hotel, built as a boarding house in 1900 and now refurbished with six rooms for bed-and-breakfast guests.

{%TravAshland-p11 060814%}

The Peerless has had the same owner, Crissy Barnett, for 20 years, and her dedication to hospitality is as evident in the restaurant as in the hotel. Accustomed to Shakespearean schedules, executive chef Stefan Peña had no problem with preparing a wonderful 6 p.m. meal for us, and making sure we were on time for the theater at 8 p.m. How we fit into our seats after a meal of Fanny Boy oysters, asparagus soup, garden salad, duck confit, halibut on coconut lobster rice and dessert for two, I have no idea.

My second choice is The Winchester, whose 19 rooms make it more of a European-style inn than a bed-and-breakfast. Michael and Laurie Gibbs opened the property in 1982, and they’re still in the drivers’ seat — although they’ve recently transferred many of the management responsibilities, including those of the newly overhauled Alchemy restaurant, to their chef-sommelier son, Drew.

{%TravAshland-p12 060814%}

A Southern Oregon classic is the Ashland Springs Hotel. Rising nine stories above the corner of East Main and South First streets since it was built in 1925, it offers old-time luxury and the integral Larks restaurant, which offers three moderately priced meals a day.

Keeping a tight rein on your budget? Check out the Art Deco-ish Ashland Motel, a half-mile east of the theaters on State Highway 99. And if you don’t mind sharing a bathroom down the hall, the old-fashioned but well-kept Columbia Hotel has second-story rooms only two blocks from bard central.

Apart from the aforementioned hotel restaurants, Amuse is another highly regarded and centrally located Ashland eatery. The husband-wife team of Erik Brown and Jamie North offer a French-styled menu that ranges from crispy sweetbreads to truffle-roasted game hen.

We enjoyed moderately priced meals at the Greenleaf Restaurant (sandwiches and pasta overlooking Ashland Creek) and Taroko Pan-Pacific Bistro (sushi and other Asian-influenced dishes at the foot of a walkway to the theaters).

Two great bars — both of which serve light meals — are Martino’s and The Playwright Public House. Martino’s, upstairs from Macaroni’s Italian restaurant but with an entrance directly opposite the Bowmer Theatre, is not an official OSF venue, but it is a favored watering hole for many festival actors. That makes it a fine place for an after-the-show stop.

Peter Bolton’s Playwright, in the Railroad District, recreates the mood of a modern English pub, right down to its shepherd’s pies and bangers and mash. British ales and weekend concerts, some of them impromptu, add to the ambiance.

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com